She also
remembered that as a small child she had been baptized, and that in
school she had been taught that "we should love one another"; this was
about the extent of her Gospel, but it had touched the heart of her
charming little mistress and had saved her life.

There were sometimes amusing things happened when these Chinese ladies
called. My husband among other things taught astronomy in the
university. He had a small telescope with which he and the students
often examined the planets, and they were especially interested in
Jupiter and his moons. One evening, contrary to her custom, this same
friend was calling after dark, and when the students had finished with
Jupiter and his moons, my husband invited us to view them, as they were
especially clear on that particular evening.

After she had looked at them for a while, and as my husband was closing
up the telescope, she exclaimed: "That is the kind of an instrument
that some foreigners sent as a present to my grandfather while he was
viceroy, but it was larger than this one."

"And did he use it?" asked my husband.

"No, we did not know what it was for. Besides my grandfather was too
busy with the affairs of the government to try to understand it."

"And where is it now?" asked Mr. Headland, thinking that the viceroy
might be willing to donate it to the college.

"I do not know," she answered. "The servants thought it was a pump and
tried to pump water with it, but it would not work. It is probably
among the junk in some of the back rooms."

"I wonder if we could not find it and fix it up," my husband persisted.

"I am afraid not," she answered. "The last I saw of it, the servants
had taken the glass out of the small end and were using it to look at
insects on the bed."

One day when one of my friends came to call I said to her: "It is a
long time since I have seen you. Have you been out of the city?"

"Yes, I have been spending some months with my father-in-law, the
viceroy of the Canton provinces. His wife has died, and I have returned
to Peking to get him a concubine."

"How old is he?" I inquired.

"Seventy-two years," she replied.

"And how will you undertake to secure a concubine for such an old man?"

"I shall probably buy one."

A few weeks afterwards she called again having with her a good-looking
young woman of about seventeen, her hair beautifully combed, her face
powdered and painted, and clothed in rich silk and satin garments, whom